


Action

by mathildia



Category: Original Work
Genre: Accidental Death, Alien Invasion, Apocalypse, Bad BDSM Etiquette, Bondage, Breathplay, Drowning, Hollywood, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Movie Star/Rent Boy, Object Insertion, Snuff, trapped together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-05
Updated: 2020-06-05
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:20:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24556069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mathildia/pseuds/mathildia
Summary: ‘Yeah but, I think we're okay in here. I saw something on the news about…I think it's the fence. Your iron fence. They can’t get through. On the news before it said something about electromagnetic radiation. That's what these things are made of. That's why the TV and everything keep going down all the time.’Ash stared at Brutus. ‘Are you actually being serious?’Brutus was so pale. ‘I think everyone’s dead,’ he said. ‘I think all my friends are dead.’The spasm took Ash by surprise as he bent and vomited his double-spiced egg-white omelette all over his $200 per square foot carpet.
Relationships: Original Male Character/Original Male Character
Comments: 2
Kudos: 20





	Action

Ash Kadiz was on holiday, his idea of a holiday. _Solitude_. With his noisy, nosey wife Pandora away filming in Bali, he had nothing to do except workout, pad around his multi-million dollar mansion and eat the salt and vinegar flavour potato chips that he'd had flown in from England. 

He'd given his personal trainer and both chefs the month off; he was perfectly capable of cooking and exercising all by himself. 

Each morning he did his sit ups and made his own omelette with egg white and doubled up quantities of spices his chef usually used. After he'd eaten, he went over to the blue bedroom, in the furthest part of the house, and stayed there until lunchtime. Just him and the box.

* * *

Ash had scaled his security down, along with everything else. Pandora had complained about it. But she was the psycho-magnet, what with all the websites devoted to weird, amateur-made fake pornos of her. Any unhinged type could now find a superior video manip of her to jerk off to. Sometimes even Ash couldn't tell which were real and which were fake. 

Without Pan to worry about, he had gone down to one security guard. But one day, passing the security hub, he stopped in the open doorway, noticing that most of the monitors were dead. What could have taken out three quarters of the cameras? They had their own back up generator. 

But the camera on the guard room out on the fence was still functioning. It showed a second bank of monitors being observed by only pair of empty pool chairs. 

_Where the fuck was Keith?_

But worse than Keith’s absence was the other man’s presence. Keith was supposed to be the only other human being in the mansion complex. So who was the guy he could see racing across the front lawn on the other functioning monitor? Ridiculously rangy and thin, definitely not Keith. 

In front of Ash was a large red panic button. Pressing it would alert the local police, along with his own private security firm. It would also lock down the house. 

He reached for it… and paused. 

And then it was too late for the lockdown to stop the front door from crashing open and a voice calling out. 'Hey! Anyone home?’

* * *

Ash looked down from the balcony that overlooked the lobby and mentally ran through a check-list of all the things the man currently standing in his entrance hall _wasn’t_ holding. No firearm. No rape accessories. No mace, no chloroform-soaked rag, no handcuffs, and, most important of all, no recording equipment. 

He leaned over the balcony. ’This is private property, mate.’ 

''Fuck,' the man in the hall said, 'Are you Ash Kadiz?'

Ash knew his recognition figures. Even in his sweat-stained gym clothes, and with his hair pulled back, nearly 50% of the world's population knew who he was – here in Los Angeles that figure must be more like 99%.

'Oh my god,' the man in the hall said. 'If I didn’t think what was going out there was surreal enough. God, Ash Kadiz. Man, I loved you in Payback and Revenge and…' The man in the hall went on for several seconds then, listing about ten more of Ash's one-word-title blockbusters.

Before he was done, Ash said, 'What's surreal?'

'What?'

'You said things were surreal.'

'Oh yeah, sorry, dude, I'm still a bit freaked out by it all, to tell you the truth. Um. I don’t really know how to…' 

He stopped. And passed out.

Ash found the sight of the unconscious man arousing and thought that, if he hadn’t just spent three hours slowly jerking himself off to old pictures of Jake, he'd probably have a hard-on right now. 

So in the end, he walked down the stairs.

As Ash approached the man opened his eyes. Ash whipped his body back, but the man still looked so harmless - so pathetic – that eventually Ash leaned in again, then picked him up took him into his lounge, aware that this was just what every minder who’d ever worked with him would have told him not to do.

* * *

Ash put the man down on one of the sunken couches in his huge lounge and ran a finger across one of his prominent cheek-bone. His clothes were cheap - a thin white t shirt and blue jeans - and as well as being fragile as a baby bird, the guy was also as deathly pale. His skin was almost translucent, his hair was over-bleached with mousey roots. Even his lips seemed a little paler than they should have been. Like he was over exposed. 

Ash stroked the pale face again. Where Ash's dark-skinned hand ran over the white forehead the contrast was so high; it was like there were no shades of grey. 

'What's your name?' Ash said, still stroking the guy's hair a little – hoping it came across as comforting rather than predatory.

The man looked shocked at the question and seemed to take a while to process it. ’Brutus,’ he said after a moment. ‘Brutus Cyanide.'

'That's your name? That's your real name?'

'Real as Ash Kadiz.'

Ash noticed that Brutus had a bruise under his right eye. He thought of the empty security room outside. 

'What's going on?' Ash said.

Brutus, seemed fully conscious now, seemed able to process the question, said, 'Probably better if you just turn on the TV, man. You'd never believe me if I tried to explain.'

At first all Ash got was a screen full of static. But he flipped the channels and eventually found something that looked like a news scene from a science fiction film. A city-scape. Weird black clouds floating around. People screaming. _What the fuck?_ Ash looked at Brutus, who nodded, as if to say, yeah, it's real. 

Ash stared. The TV cut to a newsroom. A newscaster saying, 'And if you've just joined us those were live pictures from Dubai, where the mysterious elements are as prevalent as anywhere.' Ash noticed that the newscaster wasn’t in a normal room. _Some kind of bunker?_

'What's happening?' Ash said. ‘What is this? This can’t be real.'

‘It’s real.’ Brutus said, not lifting his head. 'There are these cloud things. Black clouds. They're everywhere. I saw it on the news this morning. We locked our door like they said, but this _stuff_ came in through the window frames, the gaps under the door.' Brutus dropped his gaze, ashamed of something. 'I got out. I ran. I ended up here.'

'You led those things in here?'

'I don't think they can get in here,' Brutus said.

'You said it came through gaps,' Ash looked up at the windows. The TV had gone dead. 

‘Yeah but, I think we're okay in here. I saw something on the news about…I think it's the fence. Your iron fence. They can’t get through. On the news before it said something about electromagnetic radiation. That's what these things are made of. That's why the TV and everything keep going down all the time.’

Ash stared at Brutus. ‘Are you actually being serious?’

Brutus was so pale. ‘I think everyone’s dead,’ he said. ‘I think all my friends are dead.’

The spasm took Ash by surprise as he bent and vomited his double-spiced egg-white omelette all over his $200 per square foot carpet.

* * *

A little later, the TV came back to life. Ash and Brutus watched how the clouds of radiation – Murks, the newscasters were calling them - swallowed people up. The people died, suffocating, gasping for air, visible through the translucent blur. Although, once in a while, the people didn’t die. Sometimes when the Murk retreated they got up and walked around, afterwards, dazed and disengaged, zombie-like. 

'It was one of those things that killed your security guy,' Brutus said.

'How do I know it wasn't you?' 

'You don't. But I saved your life, because this zombie thing broke into the security box and your guy tried to shoot him, but news-flash, he was a zombie - already dead. Once your security guy bought it the zombie wandered off, but he left your security entrance open. Those things could have got through. I closed it up behind me.'

'Sounds a bit unlikely to me,' Ash said.

Brutus didn't say anything.

Then Ash said, 'You look familiar.'

'Yeah? I think I just have that kind of face.'

'No, no. I don’t think it's that. Are you in the business?'

'Not exactly. I'm _in_ business. I'm a hustler.'

'Rent?' Ash almost sprung away from Brutus on the couch. ‘Fuck. I can’t have a rent boy in my house.'

'Why? I think National Enquirer is going to have bigger things to write about this week that Ash Kadiz and his sham marriage. It's the end of the fucking world out there.'

Ash felt himself go cold. He walked over to the phone and picked up the receiver. 'I'm calling security.'

'Do it. There isn’t any security anymore. Man, there isn’t anything, anymore.’ 

Ash tried to get a line, but it was dead. His cell didn’t work either. Nor did the network on his laptop. 

'You cut the signal,' Ash said, eyeing Brutus.

'Yeah, sure I did.' 

'You cut the cables, killed my security guard, broke in here and then spun me this story to keep me here while you…'

‘While I what?’ Brutus waved a hand towards the TV, 'and those newscasters, they're all my pals. I asked them to say all that stuff. Spliced it into your cable signal.'

'Well,' said Ash, 'yes.'

'Fine. If that's what you think, leave. Walk out. Get the cops down here. Look at me?' Brutus indicated his featherweight body, 'You think I'm going to be able to stop a muscle-guy like you?’

* * *

Ash didn’t leave. He stood up and looked at Brutus for a while, before he sat back down on the couch and watched the TV with him. They watched for hours. At once point the newscasters said that, yes, for some reason the Murks couldn’t get through iron, even iron railings. They showed some footage of people holed out in parks and zoos. 'If you are safe inside an iron perimeter,' the newscaster informed them, 'it is essential that you do not go within 50 yards of it.'

'Why not?' Ash asked Brutus.

'I think they can zap you, or something.'

'Oh very convenient. So I can’t even stroll down to the gate and take a look through it and see if I can see any evidence for what you're saying.'

'Evidence? You need evidence. Fuck, man, look at the TV!'

* * *

Later, Brutus went to the kitchen and found Ash's cupboard full of chips. They ate them together, and fell asleep in front of the TV.

There was one point in the night, where Ash woke up. Or, at least, half woke up, mouth dry from the chips, and he forgot where he was, when he was, who he was. He found Brutus's slender body cradled against him. He looked at the fragile bird-body, that badly dyed hair, that bruise, blooming under his right eye. For that one little moment he really thought it was Jake. Jake come back to him. Jake, alive.

* * *

In the morning Brutus tried to turn on the TV, but he couldn’t get it to work at all. Ash stood by the big window, watching the startling view of his own beautifully landscaped garden. Waiting. 

Nothing came. 

When Brutus came over to him, having given up on the TV, it didn’t feel strange to Ash to turn around and kiss him. 

They didn't make it to the bedroom. Ash was too desperate. Too fast. Hard, and rubbing his erection against Brutus slim denimed leg. When Brutus slid down; slid professionally to his knees and applied his mouth, Ash bucked and came quickly; with more conviction than in any of his acclaimed screen performances.

* * *

The next morning, after they _had_ made it into bed, Ash said, 'I wonder where my wife is?'

Brutus said, 'Dead, probably.'

'Dead? No, she's shooting in Bali.'

'You think the Murks wouldn't have made it to Bali?'

Ash didn't reply.

Brutus said, 'You know, I always wondered about you and your wife. Like, there were always all these rumours about you, and most gay guys I ever spoke to said they only needed to look at you to tell you were queer, so, like, I wondered. Pandora, is she a dyke, because she seems too hot for that, man? Do you have to close your eyes and make yourself do her?'

Ash looked at him. Stupid piece of fucking trade. Spreads his legs once an he thinks he’s a confidant. ’Brutus, just because I've just fucked you, doesn’t mean we're lovers. You're a rent boy. It's the end of the world. You have no right to talk to me about my relationship with my wife.' Ash climbed naked from the bed and walked away.

He was over the threshold when Brutus said, 'Where're you going.'

'To workout.’

* * *

Usually Ash's secret box of pictures of his past life – his life before he became a star - was hidden inside the false back of the wardrobe in the blue bedroom. But he hadn’t been careful about putting them away now he was alone in the house. 

Which was how he walked in from his workout to find Brutus, naked and hard, crouched over the smattering of glossy photographs.

Brutus looked up, 'Sorry man, got bored of you waiting for you. Went exploring. Found your porno.' 

Ash stood in the doorway. Staring at Brutus, picturing him how he must have been seconds ago, jerking off over the images of him and Jake. Jake, tied and gagged; a hundred different ways the same. Jake, lifting his shirt to show the mass of welts and bruises on his back; each one made by Ash with as much meaning and emotion as a kiss. Jake with his mouth taped, looking into the camera, pleading with his eyes. Jake, naked, tied to a chair, with a younger version of Ash, in jeans, straddling him, clapping a hand over Jake's nose and mouth, taunting him as he struggled to breathe, grinning into the lens. One of Ash's long brown arms was outstretched, holding the camera.

Ash wetted his lips. Even half way across the room and upside down that last picture still had the power to make him pulse and throb. _He wants to breath, can’t breath until I let him._ Ash remembered taking that photo. Making Jake wait while he pretended to adjust the camera. Feeling the hard hotness between his legs as his erection crushed through his jeans against Jake's. Counting down how to take the shot so Jake _really_ started to struggle. 

Ash looked at Brutus again. Fuck, but he looked so like Jake.

Brutus stood up. He'd pulled his underpants on, but his erection was clearly visible. Walking over, he trailed a hand over Ash's sweat burnished stomach. 'Fucking hot stuff you got there, man. I could do with a bit of a workout now myself, after looking at those.'

Ash's first instinct was to walk away. Get away from these images. Away from Brutus who now knew all his secrets. But he didn't. It only took one more look at a photo of Jake's eyes above his duct-tape gag and he was hard too.

Brutus stroked Ash's stomach again. 'You like rough play, huh? You want to be rough with me? That guy in the pictures looks a lot like me, doesn't he? How about you call me his name and fuck me up like you did him?’

‘You really want to know what I used to do with him?’

‘Yeah, man. Yeah, I do.’

* * *

Afterwards Ash couldn’t remember ever making the decision. It was like his body acted by itself. Brutus was still trailing a hand on Ash's waist when Ash punched him. Hard, sending him sprawling on the floor, flat on his back. 

The expression on Brutus's face could have been anything. Fear, shock, arousal. It didn’t matter. Whatever the look was, it turned Ash on.

He growled and dived on top of Brutus, shoving him onto his stomach, twisting a fragile looking arm up behind his back. Yanking at the underpants until the seams gave. Fucking Brutus and pulling his bleached hair and biting his shoulder and just doing it all because maybe there was never going to be another chance. In the morning, everyone might be dead.

* * *

Brutus stopped wearing clothes all together after that day with the photographs – unless he was cooking or eating. It meant that Ash could see the marks he'd left on Brutus's pale skin. It meant Ash was permanently horny. He was sure that Brutus knew this. 

They watched some of Ash's films over the next few days, and then they fucked some more. The level of violence changed. In the films and in the fucking. 

There was one time, after Ash had been particularly vicious with his hands and his mouth, when Brutus went into the palatial second floor bathroom on his own for a while and Ash stood outside wondering if maybe he had gone too far.

* * *

One morning, after another workout Ash found Brutus in the blue room again, looking at Jake's pictures.

'See something you like?' Ash purred from the doorway. Brutus seemed to jump at the sound.

'What happened to him?' Brutus said.

'Who? Jake? Why do you think anything happened to him?'

Brutus shrugged. 'He's not here. Not with you. In the pictures, you look like you love each other in a perverted kind of a way.'

Brutus was holding the picture of Ash covering Jake's face while Jake was tied to the chair. Ash remembered how it felt to do that to Jake. How it felt to make those tiny calculations about how long he could hold him for. How long he could stop him breathing. And then, in a rush he remembered something else. Covering Jake's nose and mouth another time, another day, when the calculations didn’t to work out. When things had gone wrong.

'Nothing happened to him. You know how it is. I moved to America when my career took off. We just drifted apart. I didn’t love him. He was… uh, he was for rent, like you. You know how those kind of people are? They just vanish.'

Brutus nodded, got up, walked over to Ash. He went to leave the room, but Ash blocked the doorway with a big arm. 'Hang on. How about I show you some more of the tricks I used to get up to with him?'

'Nah, man, let's watch a movie first. We haven’t watched them all yet.'

‘Did you say no to me?’ Ash took half a step backwards and slapped Brutus around the face. ‘You don’t say no to me. This is my house. Get on your knees, trade, and keep your hands behind your back.'

Brutus did it. He dropped to the floor, put his arms behind him. He had this trick of getting Ash's cock out using only his mouth. Seemed it worked just as well on sweat pants as jeans. 

Ash held Brutus's hair and tried to restrict his breathing as much as he could as he fucked his face.

* * *

They watched Ash's first successful film, Alien Attack, the one that made his name, made his career, lost him Jake. Whenever Ash appeared shirtless onscreen he reached over and stroked Brutus's cock. Brutus came three times during the 100 minutes. During the last, he was begging Ash to stop.

* * *

Ash tied Brutus down on the bed and covered his nose and mouth with one hand while he lazily jerked off over Brutus's face with the other. It turned Ash on particularly to do this with an air of casual disdain, as if he was jerking himself off over some just-interesting-enough porno rather than Brutus letting Ash play with his life like it was a sex toy. 

Ash didn’t come until Brutus's eyes started to flutter and afterwards Brutus didn't speak to him for the rest of the day. But when they did speak, that evening, they talked about the outside world, for the first time in ages. 

'Do you think everyone is dead?' said Brutus. The bruise under his eye was nearly gone now, but the one on his cheek, where Ash had hit that first time was stark on his skin. He still had some of Ash's come on his face too. Ash liked the way he hardly ever wiped it away.

Ash said, 'I don't know. We should try the phone again. We haven't tried in ages. We might be able to get a line out now.'

'Yeah. Probably won’t though.'

Ash looked at Brutus weirdly, 'Yeah. But you would say that, wouldn’t you? You know I haven’t exactly seen any evidence that what you say is true since the TV stopped working days ago.'

'Oh god, man, don't start that again. What, I made this up so I could live here with you beating the crap out of me every night to get your fucked-up closeted thrills?'

'It all seems very convenient that this should happen right when I'm here all alone and I've told everyone who would normally call in not to so I can be alone…' Ash voice faltered, but he inhaled and carried on, 'be alone with Jake. With my pictures of Jake. And these things can't come through my fence so I'm safe in here but I can’t get out. And the TV is broken and most of my security cameras are down. It's just a bit too neat, don't you think.'

'Oh, whatever. I mean, even if it is a coincidence or convenient or whatever, how could I have even knows about your self-imposed jerk-off-fest of solitude? It's a coincidence, man, I don't know why you’re even complaining, you seem to be having a ball. Going out with a bang.' 

Ash ignored this. He said, 'The gardener.'

‘Huh?’

'The gardener. I didn't tell Chip not to come. I didn’t want the garden growing wild. So I just told him not to come up to the house. He won’t be here at this time. But we can go and look and see if he's done anything. If they's any sign he was here.'

'He wouldn't be able to get in,' Brutus said, 'even if he did turn up, I locked it all down when I was in the security thingy out by the fence.'

'Yeah, but what if none of this is true? What if this is some lie you've spun and right now you're broadcasting all of this on the web?'

'Broadcasting with what? And anyway, if it is a lie, then I killed your security guard to get in here. So your gardener still wouldn’t have been able to get in the garden – and he probably would have called the police. And police I don’t see.'

'No, because Chip has his own entrance. He hates all that security shit and so do I. He has a way in round the back.'

'Fine. Fuck it. Let's go out and look for him.'

* * *

Brutus stood by the pool while Ash wandered around the dark garden, trying to find evidence that the gardener had been.

'I don’t know,' Ash muttered, to himself but loud enough for Brutus to hear. 'This border looks like it might have been weeded. Or something. Oh, fuck it. This is hopeless. What day is it?'

'Fuck, man, he won’t have been here. Chip is dead. You saw the TV.'

'Stop saying that, you fuck, I really don’t trust you.'

'Whatever.' Brutus looked down at the water. 'Hey, can I have a swim, man?'

He didn't wait for Ash to answer. He turned and slipped his pale body into the water. It was a hot night. Brutus was already naked.

Ash walked over to the poolside and watched him for a moment. He said, 'Those things definitely can't get through the fence.' He said it like conversation. Idly.

'They can't, but maybe the zombies could have got in if Chip left his gate open,' Brutus said, lying on his back, sculling.

Ash looked warily around, as if his manicured garden was as threatening as a jungle. 

'Did you kill him?' Ash asked.

'Who?'

'Chip. Did you kill him so he wouldn’t give the game away? _Fuck._ ’ 

Ash didn’t hear Brutus's reply because he had already dived into the water. He swam over to Brutus and dragged him under, holding him a while before bringing him, choking to the surface, 'Don't do that, man,' spluttered Brutus, 'I'm not a good swimmer.'

'Just tell me the fucking truth, you fucking motherfucker.’ Ash pushed Brutus back under, holding him down until he thrashed like he really believed Ash would let him drown.

Ash pulled him up. 'The truth.'

'I didn't do any-' Ash forced him down again before he could finish. 

More thrashing. A pause. Then Ash pulled him up again, 'Well?'

'I didn-' _Down._

And up again. 'Well, did you kill him?'

'If I say I did, will you stop?' Brutus choked.

‘Maybe. If I believe you.’

Brutus was gasping, hardly able to catch his breath. Ash was hard watching him. Ash braced to push him back under and Brutus’s eyes lit with panic, ‘No, man, please.’ And finally, Brutus managed, ’Yes, I killed him.'

'And all this stuff about Murks, radiation, everyone being dead, you made all that up too?'

Brutus looked around the dark garden manically. His eyes were streaming and red, his white-blonde hair was stuck all over his face. He was shivering and naked. 'If I say yes to that to will you take me out of this pool and fuck me, right here, still wet?’

Ash was panting. 'Bet on it, rent.'

'None of it is true. I set the whole thing up. I just wanted to feel your hard cock inside me, man.'

Ash dragged Brutus onto the lawn; fucked him, holding his face pressed into in the dirt.

* * *

Ash started fucking Brutus a lot more after that. He liked it best in the bedroom, with Brutus face down on the bed so Ash could force Brutus's head down into the lavender scented pillows. Hold him there until he bucked and fought. Ash always came inside Brutus while Brutus was desperate for air, fighting for his life.

One time Ash tied Brutus down on the bed, kept him like that most of the day, coming in and fucking him and then leaving again. 

After a few hours, Brutus said, 'Fuck, man, you got to let me go to the bathroom.'

Ash sniffed. 'Yeah, maybe.'

'And some water. I need some water.'

'Whatever,' Ash said, leaving the room and dismissing Brutus with a hand wave as if he's a buzzing gnat of an autograph hunter. 

'Please, man. Don’t fucking do this, it’s too much.’

Ash wandered round the house for a bit. He liked having Brutus tied up. Just the thought of is had kept his cock hard all morning, although after 4 orgasms, it was softer now. And it was lonely without Brutus round the house, though. Ash picked up a beer from the kitchen and went back to the bedroom.

As he straddled Brutus's thin pale back, Brutus said, 'Please, man, you got to untie me, just for a bit. You can tie me up again after. You know it. You're stronger than me anyhow. I couldn’t stop you. But you got to let me take care of myself. I'm going to piss myself on your bed, man.'

Ash leant down and put his lips beside Brutus's ear. He licked it then said, 'Got another bed. Got another ten.'

'Fuck, man. You can't make me lie here in my own piss, man.'

Ash didn’t say anything. He necked the last of the beer and then reached for a condom. Brutus groaned – it was impossible to tell if he was aroused or resigned. Ash didn’t slide the condom onto his cock – he was spent, anyway. He slid it onto the neck of the bottle.

Ash moved back, so he was straddling Brutus's upper thighs and pushed the tip of the bottle's neck against Brutus's ass. Brutus flinched, only very, very slightly. Ash added a little more pressure. Brutus was still lubed inside. The bottle slid in without a hitch. Ash moved the bottle in and out until Brutus started to groan and grind himself against the bed. Wanting. But the whole thing didn’t really hold Ash's interest enough to make him want to fuck Brutus properly. So he pulled the bottle out, got off the bed and walked away.

When Ash came back half an hour later, Brutus was asleep and the bed was wet. He untied the ropes around Brutus's wrists and, as he did, Brutus woke up. 

Brutus didn’t speak to Ash. As soon as he could, he got off the bed and walked into the kitchen, pulled open the fridge and took out a 2L bottle of Evian. He drank about half of it in one pull. 

Ash said, 'You okay?'

'You're so fucked up, man.' 

'Yeah, whatever,' Ash said, 'I'm the fucked up one. Not you. Not you who will let me do anything to do. Is there anything you'll say no to?’

‘I don’t get to say no, remember? It's not about being fucked up. I don’t exactly have a choice.’

'Why not?'

'Because then you might kick me out. I'll die out there.'

Brutus walked out and went into the bathroom.

Ash thought maybe he really had gone to far this time. But then he heard the sound of Brutus jerking off. 

Ash tried the door and it wasn't locked. In the bathroom, Brutus was sitting on the edge of the bath with his hard cock in his hands. Ash came up behind him and replaced Brutus’s hand on his cock with his own. Brutus turned his head and Ash kissed him. It was far more tender than anything they'd done since the incident in the pool. Ash tugged and twisted at Brutus's cock, finding new ways to make Brutus gasp.

'You're so beautiful,' Ash whispered into Brutus's ear. 'You know, when this is over, maybe I'll have a party. I know lots of guys in the industry who'd enjoy getting their hands on a piece of you. Course, in some ways I don’t want to share you, but I'd also love to see you tied over the coffee table, covered in twenty different kinds of come.'

Brutus shuddered and came in Ash's hands.

‘Hot fantasy, man,’ Brutus said, a moment later. 'Shame that isn’t really going to happen. All those people you're talking about are dead.'

* * *

Ash was lying on the couch. It was raining outside and Brutus was off somewhere, cooking.

Ash remembered the first time he'd seen Brutus, that grainy image on the security camera of him running across the lawn. He remembered that Brutus had been carrying something. A backpack – some kind of bag. Where was that bag now?

Ash went to his entrance hall and heaved open his imposing front door. Daylight felt odd on his face, the rain unearthly and delicious.

On Ash's doorstep, right next to the front door sat Brutus's backpack.

Ash emptied the contents onto the ground. He only really saw one thing. A picture of Jake. Jake looking more like Brutus than Ash would have thought possible.

Ash went back to the living room and found Brutus was now sitting on the couch, drinking coffee. He walked in casually, took the coffee mug and straddled Brutus's slim body. Brutus sighed and raised his arms, stretching them up above his head and then down over the back of the couch, already half-hard and panting.

* * *

_Ash reaches up and takes both of Brutus's wrists in one big hand and says, 'Take a deep breath, baby.' He uses his free hand to seal Brutus's nose and mouth. Brutus bucks. Then Ash says, 'How did you know about Jake?'_

_Brutus struggles, but he can’t free himself from Ash's hands, tight on his hands and face._

_'I found your photo,' Ash says then pulls his hand away from Brutus's mouth._

_Brutus gasps, sucks a big breath in. 'My photo?'_

_'I found your bag. Your stuff. What do you know about Jake? Was this all some twisted scheme to get me to confess to you? What are you, some kind of PI?'_

_'What? Look, man, what is this?'_

_Ash reaches out and seals Brutus's nose and mouth again. Brutus tries to resist, to pull away, but there is nowhere to go. 'I killed him,' Ash says quietly. 'You know that don’t you? I killed Jake. It was an accident. I stopped him breathing too long. I thought I knew what I was doing, but…'_

_Brutus struggles harder. His eyes like big blue windows looking out on a summer sky._

_‘I didn’t mean to, but who’d believe that. He was in the way,' Ash says again, 'I never expected all this. Hollywood. That’s not what you expect. Some Paki in the UK. But once it came knocking, how could I say no? But I couldn’t be brown _and_ gay could I? – I couldn’t be some fucked up gay sicko with a taste for suffocating rent boys while I jerked over their faces. But I never meant to kill him. I thought I could read his signs. But maybe somehow, maybe deep down I knew I needed him dead… And I don’t know how I got away with it. But Jake was just a rent boy… No one really cared what had happened… No one ever checked up on him, ever asked. Well, until now. What do you know? Who sent you? Are you a cop? A journalist? What?'_

_Brutus isn't struggling anymore._


End file.
